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The Struggle for 
Neutrality in America 

AN AllDUKSS DELIVKRED BKKOUE THK 

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

AT IIIKIR 

SIXTY- SIXTH ANXIVEBSARY, 
DECEMBER 13, 18Y0, 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



NEW YOKK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER AND CO., 

C54 BROADWAY. 
187L 



The Struggle for 
Neutrality in America 

AN ADDRESS DELIVKRED BEFORE TIIK 

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

AT THEIR 

SIXTY- SIXTH ANNIVERSARY, 
DECEMBER 13, 1870, 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



II fh 



4 



NEW YORK : 
CHARLES SCRIBNER AND CO., 

654 BKOADWAY. 

1871. 



E'/^3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



The New York Printing Compant, 
205-213 East Twelfth Stkbet. 



o 






OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 



187-1. 



PRESIDENT, 

THOMAS DE WITT, D.D. 

FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT, 

AUGUSTUS sen ELL. 

SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT, 

ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, LL.D. 

FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

WILLIAM C U L L E N B R Y A N T, L L. D. 

DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

WILLIAM J. HOPPIN. 

RECORDING SECRETARY, 

ANDREW WARNER. 

TREASURER, 

BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 

LIBRARIAN, 

GEORGE H. MOORE, LL.D. 



COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS 



SI.YTY-SISTH ANNirEnSAIiV. 



CHARLES P. KIRKLAND, WILLIAM T. BLODGETT, 

BENJAMIN H. FIELD, ANDREW WARNER, 

GEORGE II. MOORE. 



ADDRESS. 



You have lionored me witli an invitation to occupy 
a position "svliicli lias been successively held, by many 
of the most eminent men of yonr own State, and also 
of other States. I accef)t it with distrust, not less of 
my ability to reach the high standard attained by 
them, than by reason of my disuse of the habit of 
public speaking. It is not easy for one long obliged 
to school himself to the rule of saying as little as pos- 
sible to be heard out of doors, to make an immediate 
transition, and expose with freedom all that he may 
think upon a given subject. Yet I confess I know of 
no stronger temj^tation that could have been offered 
to me to make the effort than this, as well on account 
of the kind feeling that appears to have prompted the 
call, as of the legitimate opening it affords to the 
indulgence of my favorite line of speculation. 

I purpose, therefore, without further preface, to 
enter at once upon my subject — to devote the brief 
period to which I hope to confine my draught on your 
attention to the consideration of a single topic in the 
past history of the country. I refer to the establish- 



3 

,jnent of tlic great general principle of international 
I law — that a nation has a right to be neutral in times 
of war, if it so pleases. I think the world owes the 
practical adoption of this principle mainly to the long 
and painful struggles of the Government of the Uni- 
ted States. It will be my object on the present occa- 
sion, by a rapid review of the chief events connected 
with it, to show how it was brought about. 

I think it not unlikely that this statement may at 
first cause a little surprise. Some of you may at once 
appeal to the learned work of one of the most emi- 
nent writers of your own State — Mr. Henry Wheaton 
— a work now recognized as of general authority over 
the civilized world, and of which I feel proud to say 
that I possess a copy rendered into Chinese, although 
I cannot read a word of it — and quote a rule laid 
down by him in the following terms : 
/" " The right of every independent State to remain 
' at peace while other States are engaged in war, is an 
\ incontestable attribute of sovereignty." 

To which I reply, that this may indeed be affirmed 
to be true now, but it was not true prior to the strug- 
gle that we as a nation w^ent through to sustain it. 
It is on all hands conceded that in ancient times what 
is signified by the term neutrality did not exist, for 
there is no word known to express the idea. Greece 
and Rome knew nothing of it. Even down to the 
beginning of the eighteenth century of our era, though 
many writers had come forward to contribute their 



valuable labors towards framing a system of in- 
ternational law, and had clearly succeeded in making 
tliis idea understood, the thing itself, considered as 
an absolute right in a nation, which belligerents 
were bound to respect, was by no means generally 
recoo-nized. The eminent author, Wolff, in treating 
of it, considers it so doubtful, that he recommends 
it to nations to obtain greater security by special 
treaties of guaranty. Thus, fi'om a right, it sinks 
at once into a j)rivilege. And, in point of fact, Euro- 
pean nations have seldom been able to sustain them- 
selves in any other way. The weaker powers, some 
of them composing geographical barriers between the 
stronger, are protected by guaranty ; or if not, by the 
fact of their insignificance. But even these, in times 
of long and heated strife, have rarely succeeded in 
getting their neutrality respected. 

The object, then, that I aim at is to show that, for 
the first time in history, the Government of the Uni- 
ted States, at an early period of its existence, laid 
down this principle, defined by Mr. Wheaton as a car-N 
dinal maxim of its policy. Weak as it was at first on 
the ocean, and protected on land only by its partial 
insulation, it deliberately advanced the doctrine that 
neutrality in all wars was its right as well as its 
duty. But Mr. Wheaton calls this right " incontesta- 
ble." To which I can only reply, that for a period of 
twenty years — quite a fifth of a century in our his- 
tory — it was not only contestable, but contested, and, 



towards tlie end, established only at tlie cost of war 
itself. 

We all know liow matters stood in America at the 
time when the Constitution was adopted. The revo- 
lutionary struggle had been over six years, but we 
\vere neither happy nor quiet. Liberty was fast run- 
ning into license, and law was yielding to the stern 
dictation of despairing poverty. It was at this mo- 
ment that a remedy for these evils was voluntarily 
devised, and Washington was summoned by acclama- 
tion to preside over the new experiment. It was soon 
perceived to be working like a charm. Aided by 
eminent counsellors, the marvellous offspring of the 
grand conflict for our rights, industry revived, and 
commerce once more spread her white wings over the 
ocean. Thus passed the greater part of the first term 
of Washington's Administration. Peace prevailed 
over the land, and, although grave differences of opin- 
ion were developed in regard to many details, they 
served rather to help perfect than to impair the ulti- 
mate working of the machine. It was just at this 
moment that a great catastrophe took place far away 
in foreign lands, which shook by its force the old- 
est sovereignties in Europe, and for a time materially 
endangered the edifice just raised in America. It is 
scarcely necessary to say, that this was the great 
French revolution which began to pull down just at 
the date when we were engaged in building up. 

It soon became obvious, from the complications 



fast mnltiplying witli the nations bordering on France, 
tliat some policy was to be matured l)y the executive 
head in order to provide for contingencies that might 
involve America at any moment. The people were 
all alive, awaiting with breathless interest the devel- 
opment of what they fondly hoped would prove a 
new era of liberty. Their gratitude for the aid so 
decisively rendered in their own struggle combined 
with their pride in the success of their own experi- 
ment to insj^ire a zeal not merely of sympathy, l3ut for 
cooperation. A great many similar events have since 
happened, both in the same and in other countries, 
which have been viewed with comparative indiffer- 
ence. Even though the uprising was attended with 
extraordinary violence, and blood was shed like water, 
whilst the mild and innocent monarch was made to 
atone ])y his head for the sins of three generations 
before him, these incidents, though shocking to many, 
did not seem materially to damp the ardor of the gen- 
eral enthusiasm. Civic feasts were the order of the 
day. Oxen were roasted in the streets ; flags of the 
two nations, entwined together everywhere, were the 
symbols of what was to be a more perfect union ; and 
from all quarters the acclamations of thousands rose 
to the skies in admiration of the event which was 
about to restore paradise on earth. 

In the midst of such a formidable demonstration 
the question was pressing upon the attention of Wash- 
ington, how this sudden phenomenon was likely to 



c 



6 

Lear ujjon the new machinery lie had been selected ta 
put in motion. Upon the Executive particularly de- 
volved the establishment of relations with nations 
abroad. What was he to do in the complications 
which were already making their appearance all over 
Europe ? The case was a difficult one. He had thus 
far been called to organize only the customary forms 
of intercourse. The news of the mission of an envoy 
from the young Republic raised important questions 
for which it was proper to be at once prepared. 

And here let me for a moment stop the thread of 
my subject to make one observation upon the peculiar 
, responsibility Avhich rests upon the head of a nation 
I in its relations with external powers. It is of a na- 
; ture which can never be shared by the people at 
7 large. Collectively, a people feel more than they rea- 
; son, and they are never in a condition to act at once. 
A They are, moreover, particularly prone to be swept by 
sudden passion towards war, especially if instigated 
V by the cunning devices of plausible leaders. It is far 
/ more easy, therefore, for a demagogue to stimulate 
them to a fatal course, than for a statesman to pre- 
serve a power of restraint which will secure a happy 
result. Hence it follows, that according to the action 
of a public man, placed in a position of the highest 
responsibility, is he to be held w^orthy of honor, if he 
controls the tendencies which may be fatal to their 
welfare, or to be condemned if he weakly or wickedly 
lets them go on to their destruction. There are many 



cases in wliicli this responsibility cannot be sliared. 
Let me illustrate my idea by an example or two. 

You have still living within the borders of your 
noble State one citizen to whom I trust I may ven- 
ture, in passing, to allude. When, in the fearful 
struggle from which we have happily emerged, a gal- 
lant naval officer, zealous to distinguish his loyalty, 
ventured upon the bold step of seizing a vessel be- 
longing to a proud nation then in a state of peace 
with all the world, and taking from her by force two 
men justly odious to the people by their share in the 
rank treason which conspired to overthrow our Gov- 
ernment ; and when the authorities of that nation, 
appealing for the first time to the very doctrines of 
neutral rights which it had ever before been our duty 
to maintain against her when she w^as a belligerent, 
formally demanded of us reparation for the insult and 
the restoration of those odious men, from one end of 
the country to the other the loyal and the patriotic, 
oblivious of the honorable record of the past, and 
mindful only of the opj)ortunity for present vengeance, 
flew to the precedents which belligerent law could 
furnish to defend the act, called with one voice for the 
highest honors to the brave officer who did the deed, 
and insisted above all upon the retention of the trai- 
tors at any cost. Such was the passion of the hour, 
that it invaded even the most elevated stations, and 
prompted hasty approbation from the head of the De- 
partment himself. It seemed as if there were no chance 



left of escaping a collision in wiiicli tlie united voice 
of all civilized nations would Lave justly pronounced 
us in the wrong. It was precisely in tliat critical mo- 
ment that tlie statesman to whom I allude, calm in 
council, sagacious in action, and fearless of censure 
when an emergency was to be met, was called upon to 
prepare the response in behalf of the Government. 
He deliberately assumed the responsibility of adher- 
ing to the i3recedents so honorably established in ear- 
lier times, and of recommending a retraction of the 
error, and a surrender of the men ; and his decision 
was finally adopted by the President. I do not feel 
that I am exaggerating, when I claim for this coura- 
geous resistance to the infatuation of the hour, that it 
not only was correct in principle, but also that it saved 
the unity of the nation. The two men were surren- 
dered. They forthwith fell into obscurity. Where 
are they now ? Who knows ? — and, I will add. Who 
cares ? Yet it was for the possession of two such men 
unjustly taken that Ave encountered the most perilous 
hazard of the war. If the illustrious statesman who 
saved us from that folly had never done other ser- 
vice to his country in his life, for that alone he earned 
— though I know not whether he will receive — the 
undying gratitude of his country. 

So much for one mode of redeeming responsibility 
in high station. Shall I reverse the picture, and j)oint 
out another ? Yes. Look at France, as she lies pant- 
ing and bloody, enduring the last agony of national 



9 

mortification. Who is it that lias done this deed, and 
suddenly plunged lier from the pinnacle of fortune 
into this profound abyss ? Behold the man arriving 
, at absolute ^^ower by perjury and fraud, yet fully con- 
) doned by the general suffrage of a too facile j^eople, 
instead of fulfilling the main duty of his trust — the 
l^reservation of peace to a happy land — plunging 
headlong into conflict with a neighboring power upon 
> a doubtful issue in the sovereignty of a country over 
i which he held no sway. The pretence for this hazard- 
ous step was, that the popular feeling in France was 
too strong to be resisted. Had that unhap})y chief 
only possessed the courage to seize the single moment 
of concession which might have saved the national 
honor, too rashly compromised at first, and thus pre- 
served the peace for his people, they might indeed in 
their anger have pulled him down from his high es- 
tate; but in such a fall, attended by such salvation to 
them, he might have attained a moral elevation much 
higher than he ever knew in his days of power. In- 
stead of which, he now stands before our gaze as de- 
serting his post on the first great disaster in the field, 
and flying for safety to lay his head in the laj) of the 
enemy he had provoked. From his princely prison he 
has the leisure to comprehend how chance and fate 
rule exclusively over the distracted counsels of the 
people he has betrayed, and to observe the wheels 
of tlie conqueror steadily rolling over the necks of 
the multitude whom he has destroyed. Verily, verily, 



10 

better liad it been for liiin to have perished on the 
scaffold a thousandfohl, than, Ijy pusiUanimity like 
this, record his everlasting dishonor on the most hu- 
miliating page in the history of the nation ! 

With this illustration of the portentous nature of 
the responsibility inseparably attached to the Execu- 
tive agency of a State in its foreign relations, I now 
I'eturn to the consideration of the position of Wash- 
ington when he was summoned, by the great uprising 
in France, to decide for the infant Government what 
position to take in the complications visibly to ensue. 
It was not merely a single emergency he was to meet, 
as in the examples I have cited, but his duty extended 
to the formation of a policy to stretch into the future 
far beyond the days of the youngest living genera- 
tion. The stronsrest evidence of his own sense of the 
importance of his action is found in the fact that he 
carefully prepared a series of sixteen questions, which 
he submitted to the consideration of the four members 
of his Cabinet, for their advice. To that council he 
had carefully elected two of the ablest and best-quali- 
fied statesmen that the great struggle for liberty had 
produced, the only drawback to which was the mis- 
fortune that they scarcely ever could agree. The one, 
abounding in capacity, leaned to speculation and the- 
ory, to which he sought to accommodate facts ; the 
other, equally gifted, preferred to view the facts first, 
and from them form his theories afterwards. The 
first had a synthetic, the other an analytic mind. 



11 

Tlie former would licave been best fitted to preside 
over a society of distinguished philosophers ; the lat- 
ter's province would have been to marshal armed 
squadrons on the battle-field. Yet between these dis- 
cordant elements it was the peculiar faculty of Wash- 
ino;ton to be able to educe from each most valuable 
contributions to the regulation of his polity. They 
never served him better than in the present emergen- 
cy. The sixteen questions were submitted on the 18th 
of April, 1793. On the next day all four of the Cab- 
inet had united in an afiirmative answer to the first^ 
which was the essential one. It ran in the following 
words : 

" Shall a proclamation issue for the purpose of pre- 
ventino; interferences of the citizens of the United 
States in the war between France and Great Britain ? " 

Another question — whether the Minister known 
to be on his v\^ay out as a representative from the 
new Republic should be received — was also unani- 
mously agreed to. 

And here the President was fain to stop ; for the 
opposing forces, Jefterson and Hamilton, fell into such 
differences upoil the remaining questions, that it was 
weeks before they got through their expositions. This 
was of no consequence, as from the one answer he 
laid the great foundation of his policy. A procla- 
mation was immediately drawn up and issued on the 
2 2d of April, 1793. The substantial part was in 
these words : 



12 

" Whereas, it appears that a state of war exists 
between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and 
the United Netherlands on the one part, and France 
on the other ; and the duty and interest of the United 
States require that they should with sincerity and 
good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and 
iTwpartial 'towards the helligerent ])owers : I have there- 
fore thought fit, by these presents, to declare the dis- 
position of the United States to observe tlie conduct 
aforesaid towards those powers respectively, and to 
exhort and warn the citizens of the United States 
carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever 
which may in any manner tend to contravene such dis- 
position." 

It is to be particularly observed, that throughout 
this paper the true object for which it was issued was 
not declared. There is no collective generalization, 
the true word for which is neiitralitij. The cause was 
this : Atr. Jefferson doubted whether the Constitution 
had given the President the power to declare neutral- 
ity, as it was certain that he had not the power to de- 
clare war. But he was in favor of the thino-. The 
consequence was, that the President very quietly 
directed the word to be stricken out of the first draft, 
and let it stand in the circumlocution of " conduct 
friendly and impartial towards the belligerent pow- 
ers," and " the conduct aforesaid." But nobody was 
deceived as to what this meant from that day to this. 
The President did proclaim a policy, and Mr. Jefter- 



13 

son knew tlie fact perfectly well ; at the same time, 
liis scruple of conscience Avas respected, as it should 
have been. But it was neutrality for all that. 

At the subse(;[uent session of Congress, which met 
on the 2d of December, the President, in his Message, 
communicated to both Houses the fact of what he had 
done, and transmitted a copy of his proclamation ; but 
in that paper too it may be seen that the word " neu- 
trality " nowhere appears. Such juggles in words ' 
have not been uncommon in our history ! | 

This important step was not taken a bit too soon ; 
for now the pinch of a severe struggle in behalf of 
what had been done was at hand. It was well known 
that a diplomatic envoy had been commissioned by 
the new French Republic, and was on his way to 
America. The President had been advised by his 
Cabinet to receive him at once on his arrival. But 
neither he nor they had any idea that the chief object 
of the new mission would be to break up the very 
policy just formally proclaimed. The chief directors 
of that changing era of French politics were looking 
to this country for aid in their conflict with all Europe, 
and especially on the ocean, where they were conduct- 
ing an unequal light with Great Britain. To that end 
they had, in appealing to the old alliance of IT 78, 
meditated to propose some form of convention by 
which, in consideration of an exclusive privilege of 
trade in the ports of each other, making a practical 
monopoly of their carry ing-ti'ade for us, w^e might be 



14 

tempted to enter into a union whicli, however it miglit 
have been worded, must inevitably have made us, in 
the end, a party to the war. 

This scheme was not altogether ill-contrived. The 
popular current in favor of France was at the moment 
runnins: mountain-hio-li all over America, and even in 
the Cabinet of Washington it had its most earnest 
sympathizer in the person of Mr. Jefferson. Though 
honestly i-n favor of preserving neutrality as long as 
possible, he held doubts — and not without good rea- 
son—of our ability to preserve it against the feebly- 
disguised ill-will of Great Britain ; and, in the event 
of a rupture, his disposition prompted a close union 
with France. Neither was Washington himself by 
any means averse to this policy, in the last resort. A 
good field was therefore fairly open to the labors of 
the new envoy at the moment it was announced that 
he had landed from a French frigate at Charleston, in 
South Carolina. 

And here I ask your pardon for stopping again for 
the purpose of making a single observation. In the 
relations between nations it is not quite enough for a 
Government to devise forms of policy and direct nego- 
tiations. However excellent they may be in the ab- 
stract, and however likely to insure a favorable result, 
if the organ of communication be not also well adapt- 
ed to promote the object, the issue will surely disap- 
point expectations. This remark, true in a degree 
even now, was very much more so in former days, 



15 

when tlie telegrapli was not at hand to vary instruc- 
tions, remove sudden obstacles, and rectify casual 
errors. A signal example of its truth is given in the 
conduct of Mr. Genest, the new French Minister. He 
was quite a young man, not more than twenty-seven, 
had been well trained by his father in the Foreign 
Office, under the monarchy, and had entered the diplo- 
matic service at St. Petersburg through the influence 
of his sisters, who were in the household of Queen 
Marie Antoinette. But he had imbibed such heated 
Republican sentiments, that, at the breaking out of 
the Revolution, the Russian Government seized an 
early opportunity to furnish him with his passports to 
return to Paris. This event probably recommended 
him the more to the Republicans, who had now come 
into power, and particularly pointed him out as a suit- 
able agent to serve their objects in republican Amer- 
ica ! That it was intended he should act as a fire- 
brand, there can be little doubt ; but that he should 
run the career which he actually did, was by no means 
in their contemplation. In the year 1793, to go from 
Paris to Philadelphia, by the way of Charleston, 
South Carolina, was certainly not less out of the way 
than it would be now to go from here to London 
by way of Rio Janeiro. There could have been but 
one object in this detour ; that was^ to try the temper 
of the population before going to the Government. 
If such was the case, nothing could have been more 
satisfactory to him. He Avas received at Charleston 



16 

with all the attentions which could have been paid to 
the greatest benefactor of his race, or military hero; 
and his progress through the countr}^ to Philadelphia 
was one month's continued ovation. People of all 
conditions, and officers of State, crowded to cheer him 
on his way. No similar spectacle has ever been seen 
in any country before or since. And at last, when he 
reached his destination, a large part of the population 
of Philadeljihia rushed out to meet him at Gray's 
Ferry, and from thence to escort him in triumph to 
the city. Mr. Genest was neither craft}', cool, nor in- 
sincere. This incense did for him what it has done 
for many a better man before and since : it completely 
turned his head. He thouo-ht he had nothino; left to 
cto but to dictate what he desired, and every body 
would obey. He began at once to deal out commis- 
sions to the right and left, to fit out privateers, and 
enlist officers and men ; to organize Jacobin clubs, and 
in every other respect to conduct himself in much the 
same way that he might have done at Paris. Presi- 
dent Washington received him with all proper cour- 
tesy, and his Secretary of State for a moment seems to 
have cherished visions of international amity ; but 
they were both rudely wakened from their repose by 
the complaints of the British Minister, Mr. Hammond, 
remonstrating against the capture of British vessels 
by ships fitted out from our ports under the authority 
of this new envoy. It was plain that the j^roclama- 
tion of neutrality had been trampled in the dust by 



17 

liim, and tliat Lis insolent assumption of autliorit}' 
was fast implicating tLe country in a conflict witli 
Great Britain. 

But wLat at first might have seemed an alarming 
onset, in point of fact turned out the greatest piece of 
good fortune. So outrageous became the action of 
Mr. Geuest, so offensive his mode of treating the Gov- 
ernment, that he began to fall in the popular esteem 
as fast as he had ever risen. Most especially did it 
place Mr. Jefferson, his most natural friend, in an atti- 
tude in which he had no alternative but to disavow 
all sympathy whatever with his proceedings. Morti- 
fying as it must have been to give up the policy I 
which he had cherished, he showed no hesitation in 
his course. On him it necessarily devolved to con- 
duct the official correspondence with Mr. Genest, on 
behalf of the Administration. The papers, as they 
stand on the record, tell their own story. Consider- \ 
ing the sacrifice he had to make of all his cherished ! 
notions, nothing in the long and brilliant career of 
that gentleman seems to me more honorable than \ 
the way he acquitted himself on that occasion. The ' 
conclusion of it all was, the utter failure of the 
whole project of France, the material diminution of 
the popular sympathy with that Republic, the recall 
of Mr. Genest in disgrace at the request of the Presi- 
dent, and the confirmation of the j)olicy of neutrality 
which this assault had been intended to overthrow. A 
different Minister, crafty and imperturbable like Tal- 
2 



18 

leyrand, miglit liave made mucli more miscliief. Genest 
was impulsive, but straiglitforward in his action. Yet, 
in candor it must be admitted that this result was 
quite as much due to his bewildered brain as to the 
combined sagacity of the three able statesmen who 
then guided the American policy. 

But if this first great danger, springing from the 
infectious fever of French solicitation, had been evad- 
ed, another immediately followed from the icy chill 
of British repulsion, not less alarming. So far from 
seeking a more intimate alliance, her Government had, 
ever since the Treaty of Independence — a period of 
fall ten years — assumed an attitude of supercilious 
indifference quite as provoking as any active hos-. 
tility. For a long while she had not thought it 
worth her while even to send a formal representative ; 
I and, after he came, his chief business seemed to l)e 
j confined to the duty of inditing very long despatches, 
I complaining always, and proposing nothing. Mr. Jef- 
\fer3on, on his side, returned the fire of despatches 
quite as ponderous and more convincing, the end of 
which was, no progress to a settlement, and bad feel- 
ing growing every day. The truth really was, that 
both parties were almost equally to blame for failing in 
their engagements under the treaty ; but it was clear 
that, if one did not show a disposition to begin to act, 
the other would excuse itself for doing nothing. There 
( are three sorts of diplomatic composition, which are 
\ habitually resorted to in meeting particular necessities : 



19 

Tlie first is, wlieii hostility is intended. The language 
is then courteons but short, and every word coverino- 
intelligible offence. The second, when dissatisfaction is 
to be expressed, but no action to follow. Then the notes 
are apt to be long and fnll of argument, with abun- 
dant citation of authorities, yet terminating with noth- 
ing but assurances of the highest consideration, <fec. | 
The third and last is resorted to when a sincere desire j 
for harmony prevails. Then the phrases are less J 
studied and the intent more directly signified — the 
whole sense conveyed in brief notes. The style/ 
adopted by Mr. Hammond, the first British Minister, 
and Mr. Jefferson, v/as, for the most part, of the sec- 
ond sort. Nothing was done. So the old sores of the 
war continued to rankle, and events were taking place 
every day which were opening new ones. The break- 
mcr out of the war with France was the siirnal with 
Great Britain for the issue of an Order in Council 
which swept at once a large number of our grain-laden 
ships into her ports. On the other hand, a British 
official stationed in Canada, carelessly or intentionally, 
gave out words sounding fearfully like instigations to 
the Indian tribes to prej^are for a foray on the border. 
At this rate it became plain that the bitter feeling 
against the mother-country, never really softened since 
the war, would soon take some active shaj)e. This 
spirit showed itself in Congress by successive propo- 
sitions, rising in their tone, until the last gravely pi'o- 
posed to sequestrate all debts due to British subjects 



20 

as a security for satisfaction of our demands. And 
even tliis extreme proceeding met witli a degree of 
favor tliat portended an early and violent collision. 

At tliis critical moment, Washington, wlio liad 
been closely watcliing the rise of the tide which 
threatened an early fate to his cherished j)olicy, at 
once determined to make a final effort in its behalf. 
He instituted a special mission to Great Britain, and, 
in order to be sure of his agent, he nominated an emi- 
nent citizen of your own State — John Jay, then Chief- 
Justice of the Supreme Court, and, perhaps, the man 
in all the United States who has come out of the fire 
of party trials with the slightest stain upon his gar- 
ments. 

It was a great stroke of policy, the force of which 
roused from its apathy even the Ministry of Great 
Britain. They began to show signs of a conception 
that it would be better to conciliate a power which, 
however insignificant in their esteem, it was folly 
to leave as a cat's-paw in the hands of France. They 
therefore became as amiable as they had been indiifer- 
ent. The consequence was natural. "When this hap- 
pens, the third style of correspondence immediately 
comes in. From being long, acrid, and objectless, it be- 
comes brief, friendly, and to the point. A treaty was 
soon made, and the policy of neutrality was once more 
saved. 

Of the merits or demerits of this famous treaty I 
have no intention, upon this occasion, to go into a 



21 

general examination. It is open to criticism in some 
of its details, and, at best, it cannot be ranked among 
the triumphs of our diplomacy. But in the single 
view in which I am considering it now, as connected 
with a new system of international policy, its value 
cannot be exaggerated. It rescued the country from a 
slough in which it was sinking, and where, but for that, 
it might have floundered for the next twent}^ years. 

The treaty was signed. But what a spectacle fol- 
lowed ! Poor George Washington ! Speaking of 
rulers, the sagacious Lord Bacon says : " They are like 
heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and 
which have much veneration, but no rest." Passing 
over the dubious astrology, the remark is emphatic- 
ally true of him. He had had troubles and discour- 
agements manifold, especially at Valley Forge. He 
had faced many a British array in Long Island, at 
White Plains, at Monmouth, and at Brandy wine, and 
often with but middling results, but never before had 
it been his fortune to meet with such a storm as this. 
Always before he had to meet his enemies and those 
of his country ; now it was to meet his friends and 
those who " venerated him, but gave him no rest." 
From one end of the country to the other, on the re- 
ceipt of the details of the treaty, there rose one gen- 
eral acclaim of indignation and remonstrance. Never 
was there such eager interest to understand the par- 
ticulars of a negotiation, and never has there been 
so elaborate a popular discussion of it in the news- 



'\y 



22 

papers, iu pamplilets, and upon every public platform. 
The literature connected with that treaty now fills 
volumes in our libraries. Caius, Camillus, Cato, Cur- 
tius, and many more old Romans, were called into the 
field of dispute after the fashion of that day, and each 
laid down the law after his own fashion. Every body 
knew all about it better than Mr. Jay or all the 
Cabinet. No President since Washington could have 
stood that blast, and even he shook under it. My 
native city, then relatively of more weight in the 
Union than now, and strongly attached to him, never- 
theless led the way in condemnation. At a solemn 
town-meeting the people imanimously voted a resolu- 
tion assigning twenty distinct reasons against it, and 
embodied the proceedings in a memorial to him. The 
same course . was taken in all the large towns, and 
almost everywhere else. But it was in reply to Bos- 
ton that he wrote that letter, which has ever since 
been celebrated as a pattern of modest yet dignified 
independence. 

" In every act of my administration," he writes, " I 
liave sought the happiness of my fellow-citizens. My 
system for the attainment of this object has uniformly 
been to overlook all personal, local, and partial consid- 
erations; to contemplate the United States as one 
great whole ; to confide that sudden impressions, when 
erroneous, would yield to candid reflection ; and to 
consult only the substantial and permanent interests 
of our country. 



23 

" Nor have I departed from this line of conduct on 
the occasion which has produced the resolutions con- 
tained in your letter. 

'' Without a predilection for my own judgment, I 
have weighed with attention every argument which 
has at any time been brought into view. But tJie 
Constitution is the guide which I never cwi abandon. 
It has assigned to the President the power of making 
treaties, with the advice and consent of the Senate. 
It was doubtless supposed that these two branches of 
the Government would combine, without passion and 
with the best means of information, those facts and 
principles upon which the success of our foreign rela- 
tions will always depend ; that they ought not to sub- 
stitute for their own convictions the 02:)inions of oth- 
ers, or to seek truth through any channel but that of 
a temperate and well-informed investigation. 

" Under this jDcrsuasion, I have resolved on the 
manner of executing the duty before me. To the 
high responsibility attached to it I fi*eely submit ; and 
you, gentlemen, are at liberty to make these senti- 
ments known as the grounds of my j^rocedure. While 
I feel the most lively gratitude for the many instances 
of approbation from my country, I can no otherwise 
deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my con- 
science." 

Three cpiarters of a century have passed away 
since this letter was written, and now I do not believe 
one individual exists, feelius; an interest in Washins^- 



24 

ton's memory, who would desire a single word changed 
in it. Its living force remains for application in all 
time. Even in the heat of the moment it did much 
to rally the spirit of many who began to comprehend 
the value of the object that he had staked so much to 
secure. That object was, the preservation of peace, 
and the right to maintain it irrespective of internecine 
struggles going on in all the world beside. The chief 
points of difficulty with Great Britain had been dis- 
posed of, for some time at least. Washington had tri- 
umphed over the belligerent spirit of that portion of 
the people who were rushing into war, and now he 
was able to turn his attention more closely to the task 
of reuniting the broken thread of our relations with 
France. Great was the responsibility, and nobly did 
he brace himself to meet it. 

And this was no easy matter ; for things had been 
much complicated by the mistakes that had been made 
on both sides by the respective envoys. How Mr. 
Genest spoiled his own game, has already been ex- 
plained. He had ventured to do that which is al- 
ways fatal to the usefulness of a diplomatic repre- 
sentative — he had mixed himself with the internal 
politics of the country to which he was sent. Mr. 
Fauchet, who succeeded him, had done even worse, for 
he had succeeded in implicating the successor of Jef- 
ferson as Secretary of State in transactions the dubi- 
ous character of which made that officer's resignation 
inevitable, and his own retreat expedient. On the 



25 

other hand, General Wasliington's selection of Gouver- 
neur Morris to go to Paris liad not turned out much 
better. In ordinary times, when the most that would 
be required of a Minister is to make himself accept- 
able to the Government and in society, and to trans- 
act routine business with intelligence and des23atcli, 
no one would have been more fit than he. Indeed, he 
was fitted for much more than that. His life is too well 
known to you, and his relations to your Society have 
been such as not to need that I should enlarge on his 
various excellent qualities. The difficulty was not 
that he had not made himself acceptable at the Court 
of Louis XVI. It was just the opposite. He had 
become too acceptable, and the consequence was, that 
when the internal rupture between the Crown and the 
people took place, he was found plunged deep in the 
counsels of the King. Of course it followed that, 
when the Republic triumphed, he was no longer wel- 
come to the victors, and therefore he, too, was recalled. 

It is a singular fact, how often in our diplomatic 
history this peculiar difficulty has been developed. 
Even Mr. Jefferson, who had preceded Morris, admira- 
bly fitted as he was in all other respects, had made 
affiliations with the opposition somewhat transcending 
the proper limits of his place. 

And it turned out not much better with the next 
choice that was made. Washington meant it for the 
best. His desire was now to select some one against 
whom no similar charge could be raised — some person 



26 

known to "be friendly to tlie revolutionary autlioiities, 
and yet trustworthy in acquitting liimself of a deli- 
cate duty. He looked carefully around among tlie 
public men, and liis eye rested upon James Monroe, a 
man distinguisLed for service in tlie Revolutionary 
War, tken a Senator from tlie State of Virginia, of 
sober mind, but yet understood to be sanguine in the 
ultimate success of the great movement then in prog- 
ress. Mr. Monroe accepted the trust, and immediately 
repaired to France. Unfortunately, one essential qual- 
ity for success had been overlooked : which is, that he 
should be thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his 
instructions, and disposed implicitly to execute the 
policy of his chief. Of the modes of proceeding a man 
may be the best judge when he comes on the spot ; 
but as to the substance, he should follow his orders, 
not as he, but as his principal understands them. Mr. 
Monroe, being in no sympathy with the Administra- 
tion, fell into the error of construing his instructions 
as he wished, and not as they were intended. The 
policy of Washington before the negotiation of Jay's 
treaty, and whilst there was danger of a rupture with 
Great Britain, was to do all he could to cultivate a 
friendly relation with France. To that end he ex]3ect- 
ed Mr. Monroe to adopt a conciliatory deportment, 
which might open the way to an ultimate alliance in 
case war with England should prove inevitable, but 
in no way to commit the country, or hold out hopes 
in advance of a departure from the established neu- 



27 

trality. But Mr. Monroe, instead of pursuing this 
cautious line of conduct, opened Lis career witli a 
public demonstration of liis sympathy with the new 
regime, and went on as if he regarded a breach Avith 
Great Britain certain, and he had nothing to do but 
to prepare the French authorities to seize the first mo- 
ment to close an alliance such as it had been the 
object of Mr. Genest's mission to secure. This singu- 
lar proceeding had the effect of reviving their hopes, 
then nearly extinguished, and of changing their de- 
portment, which, from cold and haughty, suddenly be- 
came extremely cordial to the new envoy. Whether 
the public manifestation of this change did or did not 
have an effect in quickening the movement of the 
British Cabinet, then engaged in negotiation with Mr. 
Jay, it is not possible to say. But the fact is certain, 
that the news which followed of the conclusion of 
that treaty filled Mr. Monroe with consternation and 
the Directory with disgust. Very naturally they 
looked to him for explanations which it was utterly 
out of his power to give. But he succeeded so far as 
this, that they acquitted him of all blame, and threw 
the whole responsibility upon his Government. This 
line of separation was a dangerous one to drav/, and 
the toleration of it by Mr. Monroe implied a state of 
feeling in him 1)y no means suitable to his place. 
Whether he went so tar as to countenance the distinc- 
tion, it is not my province to determine. The statement 
that he did, is substantially advanced in the latest and 



28 

most elaborate history of those times, written by the 
distinguished statesman, M. Thiers. It is needless to 
say that, on learning what had happened, Mr. Monroe 
received orders from his Government to return home. 
He felt so much aggrieved that he resorted to an ap- 
peal to the public in his justification, and his book did 
not scruple to throw the blame of his failure upon 
Washington himself. Washington in his turn left a 
series of sarcastic comments in the margin of his copy, 
which leave no doubt of his oj)inion of the writer. 
It served the purpose of a party-j)amphlet against the 
Government at the time, and all those people believed 
him a martyi", who wished to go into opposition. But 
impartial posterity will decide that, in rushing into 
print, he has only furnished perj^etual evidence against 
liimself. Mr. Monroe's errors, however, were only in 
judgment, unduly biased by partisan feeling, which 
were all fully redeemed afterwards by his long and 
arduous services, carried up even to the highest posi- 
tion in the gift of the nation. 

Not disheartened by this second misfortune, Wash- 
ington felt the paramount importance of still a third 
effort to conciliate France. The treaty of Mr. Jay had 
cut off all remaining chance of shaking the neutral 
policy as it respected England, so he very natu- 
rally hoped that, instead of indulging further indig- 
nation, she would see the wisdom on her side of re- 
gaining her hold upon American sympathy by an ami- 
cable I'eception of a new manifestation of unimpaired 



29 

good-will. So lie appointed Charles Coteswortli Pinck- 
ney to tlie task of correcting the mistakes of liis pre- 
decessors, and replacing the two countries on the 
ancient basis. But, no. The Directory had taken 
their bent, and were determined to follow it at all 
hazards. Indignant at the treaty of Mr. Jay, and 
fully aware that General Washington's great hold on 
the aflections of America was on the eve of with- 
drawal, by his voluntary retirement from office, they 
j^referred to try their chances to restore their influence 
by cultivating the favor of the Opposition, rather than 
meeting the advances of the Administration. It was 
in this sj^irit that they began to act on the arrival of 
Mr. Pinckney. To Mr. Monroe they continued their 
studied attentions down to the last moment of his 
stay, and they honored his departure by a public cere- 
mony, in wMcli the chief Director made a parting ad- 
dress of a most j)ersonally laudatory kind. But they 
as steadily refused to take the smallest notice of Mr. 
Pinckney. It was in vain that he ap2:>lied for a recog- 
nition of his credentials, both directly and througli third 
persons. The Directory was blind and deaf and dumb. 
For two whole months was this game kept up. Mr. 
Pinckney, wholly unprepared for so extraordinary a 
course to a diplomatic representative, was afraid to act 
without instructions, until he at last received official 
notice from the Foreign Secretary that, in accordance 
with a law lately passed expelling foreigners, he must 
forthwith quit the territories of France. Meanwhile 



30 

tlie mission of Mr. Adet, tlie third envoy sent out to 
the United States since the Ee volution, had "been sus- 
pended. The young Naj^oleon was just then begin- 
ning his career of victory in Italy, and the Directory 
felt as if they could afford to be arrogant. The only 
consolation we could have had for this treatment was, 
that we were in good company. Two Ministers from 
the smaller powers of Europe were expelled with the 
same curtness ; and even Lord Malmesbury, a special 
envoy sent by Great Britain to negotiate terms of 
peace, was banished but a trifle less rudely. 

Washington, weary with contention l3ut firm in 
purpose to the last, had now gone out of power, and 
the first thins: the next Administration was called to 
meet was this deliberate insult to the dignity of the 
nation. Under ordinary circumstances the natural 
course Avould have been defiance, and, upon the hap- 
pening of the first overt act of hostility, a declaration 
of war. But this was precisely what it had been the 
steady purpose to prevent. So it was deemed best to 
call Congress together for consultation, and to make 
still a third effort at reconciliation by the agency of a 
commission composed of three persons distinguished 
for character as well as moderation. These three were 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall, of Vir- 
ginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts. 

And here I am tempted to interj)ose a single obser- 
vation touching this peculiar form of procedure in for- 
eign affairs, because on some accounts it recommends 



31 

itself to tlie peculiar structure of our Government. 
No single man is likely often to concentrate upon him- 
self the confidence of the various sections of country, 
or exactly to represent their feelings. Hence it is nat- 
ural to resort to the selection of several, each of whom 
may be better suited to convey the sentiments of that 
reo-ion to which he himself belong-s. It is on this 
account that, in the course of our history, we have had 
at least five commissions of three j^ersons each, and 
one extending even to five. But the experience thus 
far rather goes to show that it is always a hazardous 
agency. The objection to it is, that it breeds differ- 
ences of opinion ofleu so extreme as to endanger, if 
not to defeat, the attainment of the object. Of the 
five commissions to which I have alluded, only one 
appears to have been carried through with entire har- 
mony among the members. In two of them, involv- 
ing critical questions of the restoration of peace, the 
discord was at times so serious as greatly to imperil 
the negotiation. It is not, therefore, so safe an expe- 
dient as the selection of a single person, in whose 
character and responsibility experience has taught us 
to rely. Had Mr. Jay been in a commission, I very 
much doubt if any result would have been reached. 
In the case immediately before us another difiiculty 
occurred. These eminently respectable and competent 
men were destined to be subjected to trials of which 
they had no suspicion in advance. Attemj^ts were made 
to divide thera, and not wholly without success. They 



32 

came in tlieir simplicity armed witli tlie best of rea- 
soning to prove tlie justice of tlieir complaints and 
the advantages of peace and conciliation. They were 
met by a whispered inquiry how much they were 
ready to pay. Think for a moment of John Marshall, 
who for over thirty years held up the judicial ermine 
free from the slightest breath of stain, invited to hag- 
gle with the emissaries of Talleyrand about the terms 
in cash upon which they might ho23e for the privilege 
of being courteously treated ! Nothing of that sort 
had been set down in the instructions, for the Govern- 
ment was then entirely beyond suspicion of harboring 
corruption in any form. Washington and Jefferson, 
Hamilton and Adams, might differ widely in opinion, 
but their hands were clean. On the other hand, the 
Directory had passed from its early stage of in- 
fatuated sentiment into the hands of sensual and 
greedy adventurers. The chief, Barras, fond of pleas- 
ure, and realizing the description Sal lust gives of Cati- 
line, "alieni appetens, sui profusus," considered his 
post as a fair source of supply to his j)rivate gratifica- 
tions ; whilst the Secretary, Talleyrand, an unfrocked 
priest not behind him in profligacy, far excelled him 
in the art of j)laying for great stakes. Of course, the 
commissioners decided that there was no room for 
them in such company. The answer soon appeared in 
the refusal to negotiate. All the long despatches, 
with their skilful reasoning, availed only to cover the 
transaction from the gaze of the 2)ublic. Towards the 



33 

last the adroit Talleyrand fixed his attention uj^on Mr. 
Gerry, and tried to make liim malleable for a separate 
negotiation. And in one sense he succeeded ; for Mr. 
Gerry rather weakly did consent to stay after his col- 
leagues left Paris. I entertain no doubt that the wily 
Frenchman then thought the game had gone too far, 
and wished to evade the possible result of an open 
rupture. But Mr. Gerry would not lend himself to 
any compromise, and even this device ended in noth- 
ing. 

Thus closed this fourth effort to save the neutral 
policy by establishing a reconciliation with France — 
no ^vithdrawal of her attemj^ts to plunder us on the 
ocean, and no moderation in her ofl:ensive demands of 
satisfaction for the negotiation with Great Britain. In 
this emergency the Administration had no alternative 
l3ut to submit to the world a complete report of all 
the proceedings. Hence the exposure of the scandal- 
ous operations of three emissaries of Talleyrand, 
designated by the letters of the alphabet X, Y, Z, 
^v^hicll went back to Europe and became notorious in 
every quarter of it. This vv^as as unexpected by the 
Directory and their secretary as it was unwelcome. 
Frenchmen are more alive to the ridicule than to the 
wickedness of a transaction. On the other hand, the 
publication had the effect in America of rallying the 
whole people to the support of the Government. The 
scheme of chanorino: the Administration with the co- 
operation of the Opposition was dissipated ; for every 
3 



34 

loody was ashamed of l^eiiig suspected to favor such 
doings. The alternative was war, and accordingly for 
war were all the necessary preparations made. Wash- 
ington was called back from his retirement to head the 
army, and the navy found here the source of that effi- 
ciency which has since develoj)ed itself so nobly on 
every sea. 

Never since the issue of the proclamation was the 
country so near to shipwreck of its policy of neutral- 
ity as at this moment. Great Britain was already on 
the watch for events ; and projects of closer alliance 
and joint operations were fast breeding in many 
minds. Had the Directory continued to be stimu- 
lated by the honest infatuation of the Jacobin era, it 
is not unlikely that we might soon have found our- 
selves deeply complicated with embarrassing adven- 
tures on land and at sea. But the patriotic fever had 
passed away, and Talleyrand, who now guided the 
foreign policy, was not a man to be carried off his feet 
by a fit of enthusiasm. He saw at once that he had 
overshot the mark. By alienating America, he had 
neither filled his own pockets nor helped the French 
position in Europe. This skilful diplomatist was too 
great an adept iu intrigue not to understand how to 
guard against personal responsibility for the overtures 
of his agents ; so he hazarded nothing in disavowing 
all their acts. Neither can I find that his private ne- 
gotiations, though flagrant enough, involved any inju- 
rious sacrifices for his country. He seems to have 



35 

required subsidies from weak powers for doing what 
would serve tliem, and at tlie same time be of no 
disadvantage to France. So, finding lie had missed 
his aim in this attempt on the United States, and 
that the result was likely to play into the hands of 
England, instead of throwing up the cards, he imme- 
diately set about a scheme to restore his chances. The 
President, in his Message to Congress laying the facts 
before them, had left a single opening which, if 
promptly used, might bi'ing matters back at least to a 
possibility of reopening negotiation. Talleyrand qui- 
etly took advantage of it at once. He recognized the 
condition declared to be indispensable, and com- 
plied with it. Overtures came in a roundabout way 
to the Administration, the acceptance or rejection of 
which imposed a responsibility almost equally onerous. 
After so much wanton trifling, attended by such intol- 
ei'able arrogance, it was difficult at once to summon 
confidence in the sincerity of so sudden a change. It 
was, moreover, not a little hazardous to check the flow 
of popular feeling that had set in for war, upon which 
reliance was to be placed to carry it on if it should 
prove inevitable. Yet, after anxious consideration, the 
President, assuming to himself the whole responsibil- 
ity for his act, determined not to neglect the overture. 
lie put trust in the sincerity of the maker so fiir as to 
otter to send out a new mission, conditioned upon the 
express public recognition of it in advance of its de- 
parture. This was all that Talleyrand wanted. The 



36 

assurances were given at once. France was relieved 
from tlie effects of liis error. So were the United 
States. The disappointment fell to the share of Great 
Britain alone. 

Chief- Justice Ellsworth, William llichardson Davie, 
and William Vans Murray, were at once appointed to 
repair to Paris, and this time the gates were left wide 
open to receive them. Not a word of offence about 
the British treaty ; not a whisper about money ; not 
a single long despatch, terminating in no measure. 
Napoleon Bonaparte had become the Fii^st Consul of 
the Eepublic, and the supple Minister understood that 
conciliation was the policy. The consequence was a 
treaty, and the American right to be neutral in the 
wars of Europe was for the third time rescued in a 
moment of its greatest danger. 

This treaty is memorable for another reason : it 
retrieved the great error which had been committed 
all the way back in the first treaty of alliance, nego- 
tiated before we could be called independent — I mean 
the treaty with France in IT 7 8. Anxious as our com- 
missioners then were to get the assistance of so great 
a power in the severe struggle for liberty, it is not sur- 
prising that they should have omitted to study the 
force of every word in it. Hence, when France came 
forward and proposed to guarantee on her part to the 
United States their liberty and their possessions, as 
they should be determined in America by the issue of 
the war, it did not seem very much on her part to ask 



37 

that we slioiild, in our turn, guarantee to her all the 
possessions she might have in America at the same 
date. All this might have been well enough but for 
the sli2:)ping in of one little bit of a word, which yet 
means so much that it does not become us poor, feeble, 
finite beings to play Avitli it at random. This was the 
word " forever ; " and when put after the word " guar- 
antee," it signified no end of obligation. It was like 
placing a figure 1 in arithmetic before a few hundreds 
of valueless ciphers, except that, in this case, there is 
a limit, and in that there is none. Had the commis- 
sioners stopped to think, they might have foreseen 
that this was not a fair bargain ; for, after the recog- 
nition of our independence by Great Britain, we were 
likely every year to grow more secure in the posses- 
sion of our territories, whilst, on the other hand, the 
possessions of France were in the West Indies, pecu- 
liarly liable to attack in every war, especially with 
Great Britain. In point of fact they have nearly dis- 
appeared. But the commissioners were not seers, nei- 
ther did they afi:ect philology. The consequence was, 
an important variation from the principle of neutral- 
ity, which came back to j^lague us after that princij3le 
had been solemnly proclaimed as the national policy. 
In this particular it must be conceded that France had 
claims upon us which it was difiicult to deny, or even 
to dispute. It formed the most serious obstacle to the 
settlement of the differences, and it was expunged at 
last only by consenting to abandon the just claims of 



38 

private citizens for the plunder of their property on 
the high seas, which they had risked upon their confi- 
dence that their own Government would protect them 
from wrongful violence. Thus it turned out that the 
little w^ord with a big meaning — "forever" — was re- 
deemed at the end of twenty-three years, and at the 
price of about ten millions of dollars, drawn from the 
estates of private persons, many of them made poor 
by the loss of it, not a cent of which has ever been 
repaid. I think it cannot be denied that this to the 
Government was a bargain, " cheaj) as dirt " and about 
as clean. 

If there be at this time any unsettled claims on 
foreign Governments for depredations on private prop- 
erty at sea, of a similar nature, which under the insti- 
gation of political ambition may be made the pretext 
of a war costins: a thousandfold their amount to the 
country, I take the liberty of respectfully pointing out 
to the j)roprietors the dangerous nature of the present 
example. Let them beware of a peace negotiated on 
the basis of a cession of territory, North or South, at 
their expense. 

But time wears, and I must hasten to the end of 
my story. The principle laid down by Washington 
had now been saved three times, and it might have 
reasonably been hoj)ed that afterwards the country 
would be permitted to adhere to it free from further 
molestation. So far was this from the actual truth, 
that a new struggle was then impending, which for a 



39 

time sank it completely out of siglit. As the wars 
of Europe waxed hotter and hotter, as Napoleon ac- 
quired a sway over the Continent which was only bal- 
anced by the corresponding growth of British power 
over the water, all notions of respect for any neutral 
rio-hts became fainter and fainter. French decrees and 
British orders in council vied with each other in the 
ferocity with which they threatened vengeance against 
all who claimed a right to trade with their enemies. 
The details of this unparalleled state of things are too 
iixmiliarly known to need to be dwelt upon at this 
time. The United States, which had a legitimate 
right of being the common carrier for the greater part 
of the civilized world, was suddenly made the victim 
of the angry passions of each party in its turn. The 
alternative was a painful one. Either the whole field 
in ^vhich neutral rights were brought into disjDute 
must be abandoned, or war must be w\aged in their 
defence against one party or the other, and perhaps 
ao;ainst both. 

Mr. Jefi'erson had by this time succeeded to power. 
His disposition was strong to maintain, in this respect, 
the same general policy j)nrsued by his predecessor, 
to which he had given his assent as an adviser of 
Washington. But the dilemma was a painful one. 
His love of peace prompted the entire withdraw^al of 
the commerce of the country from the ocean, which 
was equivalent to a surrender, for the time, of the 
whole question at issue. To this he had been the 



40 

more compelled by necessity created by Lis neglect of 
tlie maintenance and growth of a navy, without the 
protection of which neutral rights on the high seas 
were not in that day, perhaps are not in any time of 
war, likely to secure respect. Yet a secession from the 
ocean was practically a temj)orary suspension of the 
right to use it, and a surrender of the whole question at 
issue. The embargo which followed was a public con- 
fession of weakness, justified only by necessity. The 
non -intercourse presently substituted was a still moi*e 
pitiful expedient, of which the injury done was more 
to ourselves than our oj^ponents. These expedients 
only served to irritate the British the more, and did 
not save us from the dano-er of ultimate collision. The 
assault of a British naval commander in our w^aters 
upon one of the national frigates as she sailed out of 
the harbor of Norfolk, and the seizure of four of her 
men by violence, on the assumption that they Avere 
British subjects, only proved that timidity was no way 
to secure respect. I can never read the account of 
that transaction without a profound conviction that 
the national spirit which animated that officer could 
be dealt with j^roperly only by a blow. It is very 
true that the act was ultimately disavowed, and the 
offender equivocally censured ; but the principle upon 
which he proceeded was not disavowed, and the gen- 
eral right to take men by force, on the ground that 
they were subjects, was not only justified, but harshly 
exercised. Neither was the deportment of the British 



Minister of a kind to promote a spirit of reconcilia- 
tion. George Canning, with all Lis brilliancy of tal- 
ent, was the impersonation of the most unpleasant 
features of the national character. His social wit in 
grave circumstances too often changed to sarcasm ; his 
indifference to superciliousness, his courtesy to arro- 
gance. It is not, then, to be wondered at that the 
various efforts at negotiation, and the exchange of suc- 
cessive diplomatic envoys, which at times seemed on 
the eve of reconciling differences, all successively failed. 
Sometimes too much had been yielded, and the Minis- 
ter was disavowed ; at others he was so insolent that 
he was dismissed. The root of the evil was in the 
heart which failed to be true to the proposed object ; 
and the end was to bring on a war, which, taken from 
the English point of view, has ever seemed to me a 
blunder committed from her customary habit of not 
retracting an error in good season. 

The war came. It was deliberately declared by 
us, and I have never been able to doubt its necessity 
as a means of brinsrino; Great Britain to reason. An 
experience of two years, with no decided issue on 
either side, was found sufficient to effect that olgect. 
An offer of friendly mediation made by Russia cleared 
the way for a direct communication, the issue of which 
was the assembly of commissioners to treat at Ghent 
in the Spring of 1814. Three persons appeared on 
the part of Great Britain, and five on that of the Uni- 
ted States. The former were Lord Gambler, Mr. 



42 

Goulburn, and Mr. Adams ; tlie latter were Messrs. 
Gallatin, Adams, Bayard, Clay, and Kussell. Of the 
doings of this body I must dispense witli sucli a nar- 
rative as I sliould like to give. Of tlie fluctuations 
of liope and of fear on tlie American side, of tlie va- 
riations of tlie struggle witli their opponents, and the 
more earnest and sometimes critical divisions amono; 
themselves, I have the fortune to be provided with 
peculiar materials to judge, as they have been trans- 
mitted by one himself actively engaged in the scene 
Some time or other I hope to be able to make that 
contribution to our history. But I cannot resist the 
present temptation to pay a brief tribute to the use- 
fulness of another of the actors, and the more that he 
was so well known afterwards in this city, to which 
he came to spend the last years of a long, a distin- 
guished, and an honorable career. Time, which rolls 
on in its ceaseless course, rapidly obliterates the traces 
of the ephemeral reputations raised amid the conflicts 
of mere j)artisan politics. Even on the ever-expanding 
roil of the names of our chief magistrates, nine tenths 
of them will pass under the eye of a remote generation 
with as little emotion as we now feel when we run 
down the columns of those of the rulers of Borne in 
the Consular Fasti. From such a doom Albert Gallatin 
merits to l^e excepted, for few of his generation con- 
tributed more to the maintenance and preservation of 
the country in its most critical conjunctures. This is 
particularly true of his services in diplomatic stations, 



43 

for whicli he was iu every respect eminently fitted ; and 
nowliere were liis qualities more usefully developed 
tliau while tlie negotiations for 23eace were j)ending. 
Tliey were, from tlie necessity of the case, carried on 
under much disadvantage, the English commissioners 
having constant opportunities of communication with 
their Government, whilst the Americans were con- 
strained, by their distance over sea, to take great re- 
sponsibility in every emergency ujjon themselves. A 
sense of this pressui-e very naturally gave rise to many 
conflicts of opinion among the five men, according to 
the nature of their respective temj^eraments. These 
dififerences sometimes developed warmth in just pro- 
portion to the estimated importance of the interest 
afi:ected. It is just here that the intervention of Mr. 
Gallatin appears to have been of the highest value. 
Calm in discussion, quick in mastering the points at 
issue, ready in resources, and adroit in giving shaj^e to 
accej^table ^propositions, his influence upon the thread 
of the negotiation is apparent, not less in the inter- 
course with the opposite side than in reconciling the 
jarring interests of his own. It may justly be said 
of him, that in this most important emergency, when 
the scales were trembling in the balance, his j^eculiar 
qualifications came in to give just the weight adequate 
to secure the desired result. 

Thus it turned out that, on the 24th of December, 
1814, the treaty of peace with Great Britain was 
made which has secured the pacific relations of the 



44 

two countries for a period now extending beyond half 
a century. 

Of the character of that treaty there were opposite 
opinions held at the time, though the peace was hailed 
with universal joy. It was objected to it that in 
terms it settled none of the great questions of neutral 
rights, for the defence of which the war had been de- 
clared, and left matters much in the condition in which 
they were before. Literally speaking, the remark may 
be true ; and yet, in j)oint of fact, it is the very oppo- 
site of truth. Great Britain, in terms, yielded noth- 
ing of the pretensions she had advanced before the 
war. It is not her habit, nor the habit of any great 
nation, to humiliate itself unnecessarily. On the other 
hand, from the date of that treaty down to this mo- 
ment not a question has been raised, not a complaint 
made of the repetition of any such scenes on the 
ocean as were happening every day before. The bar- 
barous practice of impressment has been voluntarily 
abandoned. The claim of a right to the services of a 
subject in despite of naturalization elsewhere has 
never since been pressed, and has very lately been ex- 
plicitly surrendered : and, from being a fierce enemy 
to the extension of neutral rights, Great Britain has 
gradually been becoming our aptest scholar. Indeed, 
she has outrun her preceptor; for, in 1856, she gave 
in her adhesion to the Declaration of Paris, which 
abandoned the piratical practice of privateering, and 
recognized the principle she had so long contested, of 



45 

free ships, free goods. Nay, even more than that. In 
the late nnhap2:)y conflict between ourselves, it hap- 
pened to be my particular duty to make many com- 
plaints of her alleged violations of neutrality, the 
favorite mode of replying to which was by appeals to 
our own construction of neutral doctrines. This 
being so, I think it may justly be claimed that the 
treaty of Ghent was our greatest triumph, inasmuch 
as from that date has commenced the change of policy 
which has at last placed the most ruthless belligerent 
known to the world in the ranks of those who recog- 
nize the principle upon which Washington started, 
and which Mr. Wheaton has put into language I now 
ask leave to rej)eat as the burden of my song : 

" The right of every independent state to remain 
at peace whilst other states are engaged in war, is an 
incontestable attribute of sovereignty." 

Happy day of a treaty which witnessed the estab- 
lishment of so grand a confirmation ! — worthy, in- 
deed, of being signed on the eve of that blessed morn, 
the anniversary of the declaration from on high of the 
great mission of peace and good-will to all mankind. 

This great victory, then, is won : and for the future 
no question will ever be raised of the right of the 
United States to remain at peace, no matter what par- 
ties may choose the fearful work of mutual destruction. 
May I not venture to use the words of an oldpoet : 

" And now Time's wliiter series is begun, 
Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run ; 



46 

Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly, 

Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky ; 

Our nation with united interest blest. 

Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest." 

Yes, it sliall " sway tlie rest," not by its power, but 
by its example ; not by dictation, but by adhering, 
iu the day of its strength, to the same pure and 
honorable policy which it proclaimed and defended 
when relatively weak. Yes, and still more, by devel- 
oping the system which has been inaugurated, as far 
as it may be carried, to secure peace to non-combatants 
everywhere. The Convention of Paris in 1856 made 
great stej)s towards it, but it wanted one which Mr. 
Marcy went too far in making a condition to our sign- 
ing that instrument. Thus our national testimony has 
failed to be recorded upon a paper so honorable to the 
progress of the present age. The time had not arrived 
for that more mao-nificent advance in the career of 
humanity ; but brilliant will be the fame of the states- 
man who may have it to declare that through his 
agency so great a step shall have been taken. Nay, 
and still beyond that : his ]3rovince it may be to make 
yet other moral conquests — to disclaim the right of 
neutrals to supply instruments of war to either bel- 
ligerent — to expand the privileges of the sea, so that 
no piratical cruiser shall be permitted to stroll over 
the ocean in search of plunder from the unarmed and 
defenceless, on the plea that he is a privateer. And 
even beyond that again : that no innocent, unarmed 



47 

private voyager of any country, found on any ocean 
of the globe, sliall take harm to himself or his prop- 
erty merely from the fact that he belongs to a bellige- 
rent nation. 

These be thy victories, O Peace ! before which the 
roar of the booming cannon, the yell of savage com- 
bat, the execrations of the dying, the groans of the 
wounded, and the shriek of the widow and the 
orphan, all discords melting into soft harmony of 
blessings, shall be made to ascend in sweet incense 
to the skies. 



49 



PROCEEDINGS, ETC. 



At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, held in the 
Academy of Music, in the City of New York, on Tuesday, 
DccemLer 13th, 1870, to celebrate the Sixty -sixth Anniver- 
sary of the Founding of the Sccicty : 

The exercises were opened with prayer by the Kev. Henry C. 
Potter, D.D., Rector of Grace Church. 

The President, Picv. Thomas De Witt, D.D., on introducing 
Mr. Adams, remai-kcd : 

" The Sixty-sixth Anniversary of the New York Historical 
Society derives" special interest from the presence of him who this 
evening will address us. Among the names inscribed on our his- 
torical annals, and commended to us by the valuable services they 
have rendered to our comitry, there is none more prominent and 
distinguished than that of Adams. Through three successive gen- 
erations, reaching from the latter part of the Colonial Government, 
through the Revolution, and onward from the formation of the Con- 
stitution to the present time, the most important civil and diplo- 
matic trusts have been ably and successfully discharged by them. 
The fn-st President Adams was conspicuous in the discussions and 
measures preceding and issuing in the Revolution, and resulting in 
the National Independence, and afterwards occupied the most impor- 
tant offices. His son, the second President Adams, was trained from 
early youth in his country's service, and continued uninterruptedly 
in various offices, diplomatic and civil, of the highest rank, till his 
death at an advanced age. We have now with us his son, who most 
worthily sustains the prestige and honor of the family name. He 
has recently returned from wisely and fiiithfully discharging the im- 
portant diplomatic trust in the mission of United States Minister to 
the Court of Great Britain. ¥/e gratefully acknowledge his kind- 
ness in acceding to our request to address us this evening. We 
greet him in acknowledgment of his personal worth and merit, and 
"in the cordial reminiscence of the debt we owe to his ancestry. We 
greet him especially in the name and in behalf of the citizens of 
our common country." 
4 



50 

Upon the conclusion of the address, Mr. William M. Evahts 
rose, and said : 

" I have the honor to move that tlie thanks of this Society be 
presented to Mr. Adams for the learned, eloquent, and instructive 
address vrhich he has delivered to ns this evening, and that he be 
requested to furnish a copy thereof for j^ublication. In making this 
motion I am sure I may be permitted to say that, among all the 
able and useful discourses which, under the auspices of this Society, 
liave been delivered to the various intelligent audiences which have 
from time to time been assembled, I but express the general opin- 
ion of this Society, and the universal applause of this audience 
shows that they concur in the judgment, that none has ever been of 
greater merit, or is likely to be of higher public advantage, than 
that to which we have listened to-night. We have felt that its 
attraction and its impression were not due alone to the stores of 
liistorical knowledge that could present within the brief space of an 
hour a complete grasp of those great international questions, nor to 
the delicate and firm touches by which he has drawn the distinctions 
of character in the eminent public servants to whom he has referred 
— explaining what helped and what hurt the interests committed to 
their charge — and in which he shows the skill of the orator ; but 
what gave an added charm was the feeling that he spoke concerning 
c}i}>lomatic action, being himself a most famous master of the art ; 
that in that arm of diplomacy, by which a nation, through capable 
servants, forefends war and controls peace, he himself had been 
permitted to perform for his country greater services than in the 
history, of the world many men of any age have had an oppor- 
tunity to perform for their country. You have referred, sir, to 
the eminent citizens of his name who in their respective genera- 
tions have served the needs of the State. I will allude to only 
one particular feature of the duties which have fiillen to those 
statesmen in succession. In the line of diplomacy they have had 
the singular fortune to represent their country in Great Britain 
in connection with three important wars, under circumstances of 
great asperity towards us in the Government to which they were 
accredited. After the animosities of the Revolutionary war had 
ended so far as to permit intercourse between this country and 
Great Britain, Mr. Adams, afterwards President, represented the 
country in England. And after the second war, when the animosi- 
ties evolved in that struggle were to take only the form of diplo- 
matic controversy, John Quincy Adams was our representative. 
And when we come to the condition that we have no enemies but 
ourselves, divided by civil war, and when there was a very strong 
disposition on the part of European governments to take part in 
the contest, and very great bitterness of feeling was evoked, the 
orator of this evening had the fortune to represent the United States 
in England. And now, Mr. President, I think we may also derive 



51 

tliis instruction from our efforts and successes in vindicating the 
rights of a nation to be neutral during the wars of other nations, 
that we had earned a right, when there came to be a war within our 
own boundaries, to insist on neutrality, being maintained by foreign 
nations towards us. I venture to say, also, that, unless this almost 
vmimpeachable record of honest, earnest, persistent neutrality had 
been our possession, we never should have succeeded against the 
vast interests and the strong passions that were aroused against us 
abroad, in holding foreign nations to that measure of neutrality that 
was essential to the safety of the country." 

Resolved, That tlie thanks of the Society be presented to Mr, 
Adams for his able, eloquent, and instructive address delivered this 
evening, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication. 

Mr. William Cullen Bryant rose, and said : 

*•' I have listened with great delight and deep interest to the 
address of our eminent friend from Boston, and wonder not that he 
has so perfectly enchained the attention of the audience. I have 
heard with admiration the wise maxims of public policy which he 
has so clearly stated, and rendered luminous by so many illustra- 
tions from our history, happily chosen, woven into one symmetrical 
whole, and interfused with his own individual thought. I have lis- 
tened with a special interest to that part of his address which re- 
lated to Citizen Genest — who had the contest with Washington, in 
which he was so ingloriously worsted — because I knew the man, and 
remember him very vividly. Some forty -five years since he came 
occasionally to New York, where I saw him. He was a tall man, 
with a reddish wig and a full round voice, speaking English in a 
sort of oratorical manner, like a man making a speech, but very 
well for a Frenchman. He was a dreamer in some respects, and, I 
remember, had a plan for navigating the air in balloons. A pamphlet 
of his was published a little before the time I knew him, entitled, 
' Aei'ial Navigation,' illustrated by an engraving of a balloon shaped 
like a fish, propelled by sails and guided by a rudder, in which he 
maintained that man could navigate the air as well as he could navi- 
gate the ocean in a ship. 

" When De Witt Clinton was Governor of this State, a Quaker, 
who had, as the Scotch say, a bee in his bonnet, called on him, and 
said that he had a project to submit to him, in behalf of which he 
wanted his influence. It was, to gather the Jewish people from their 
dispersion, and build for them two cities in the Highlands of the 
Hudson, on two mountains. Thither he wanted them all to go and 
be happy. They might, he added, make frequent visits to each 
other, passing from mountain to mountain, and so give much of 
their time to social intercourse. 

" Mr. Cliutou listened to him patiently, and then suggested that 



there was one difficulty in the plan. ' Going down one steep moun- 
tain and going up another would be hard work, particularly for the 
women, and be likely to prevent much intercourse between the two 
cities.' 

" ' Ah,' said the Quaker — Hanson, I believe, was his name — ' I 
never thought of that. What does thee advise in the matter 1 ' 

" ' There is a gentleman at Troy," answered Clinton, ' Mr. Ge- 
nest, who has a plan by which, perhaps, the difficulty anight be 
obviated. Suppose you consult him.' 

" The Quaker went and consulted Genest, who explained to him 
his system of aerial navigation, and assured him that there was 
nothing to prevent the people of the two cities from passing from 
one to the other horizontally through the air. 

" Afterwards Hanson met with Mr. Clinton, who asked him, 
' Well, did you see citizen Genest ? ' 

" ' I did,' answered Hanson ; and then, assuming a confidential 
tone, ' but don't thee think that friend Genest is a little visionary 1 ' 

"• He W'as visionary, and one of his visionary projects was his 
appeal to the American people against the firm resolve of Wash- 
ington to persevere in the assertion of our neutrality in the war be- 
tween France and Great Britain. 

" I now second the motion just made, and am sure that it will 
1(6 carried with enthusiasm." 

The resolution was adopted unanimously, and, after a Benedic- 
tion pronounced by Ecv. Howard Crosby, D.D., Chancellor of the 
University of the City of New York, the Society adjourned. 

Extract from the Minutes. 

Andrew AVarner, 

Recording Secretary. 






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